That's lovely, but as I had to tell more than one first, a/k/a ex, wife in my IRS years, the government wasn't a party to that agreement and isn't bound by it. Disposition of IRAs is first determined by the stated beneficiary. Do you have any idea of who that was?

Oh, wow, this is getting more complex. Ok, what happened was my wife's dad changed his Will about 6 months before he died, but his Estate attorney didn't get him to change the IRA beneficiary designations. The change in the Will gave the fourth wife about half of his IRA (yes, I know there's something wrong with this, but my wife and her two sisters didn't want to fight it). She was to get his RMDs for life, with whatever is left going to my wife and one of her two sisters. The unchaged IRA designations gave the IRA in equal portions to each of his three daughters, one of whom is my wife. The new Will also gave one of the daughters the other half, cutting out my wife and her other sister (this was done by the remaining sister to screw her other two sisters, but again my wife and her other sister didn't want to do anything about it). Northern Trust held the IRA, and it refused to do anything without a court order, so everyone got together and the Estate attorney got a court order that allowed Northern Trust to change the beneficiary designation to only cover the fourth wife and the one sister, with my wife and her other sister getting whatever's left at the deaths of the fourth wife and the screwed up sister. Bottom line: There's an inherited IRA for the fourth wife, plus another inherited IRA for the screwed up sister, both IRAs name my wife and her other sister as sole beneficiaries. There are many reasons why all this happened that I see no reason to go into, plus I stayed out of it completely in order to keep my wife happy. I don't care about the money at all, and truth be known neither does my wife. Anyway, Northern Trust sends my wife a yearly statement regarding the fourth wife's inherited IRA. We don't know what happened to the screwed up sister's half, and we don't care. There's a good chance that the screwed up sister has cashed it out completely, and the screwed up sister doesn't communicate with the other two sisters, and they don't communicate with her. Anyway, when I was looking last night at how much Northern Trust was screwing the IRA up (the fourth wife's one) with rediculous investments for an old lady, plus the rather large fees, I wondered what would happen when the old bird dies off, which is why I originally asked this question. This is probably more than anyone wants to know about this, and it's a lot more than I care to even think about all that has happened in this truly screwed up family mess. Anyway, thanks for any imput.

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